The End of Cash?

[3113]

As a sci-fi reader/writer it's always interesting to me to see how one little change changes everything. If paper money and coin goes--as it seems to be going--and transactions become entirely digital, what will the world be like? Here's a glimpse. Thoughts?

 

[PoppingTom]

It'll be pure communism, believe me.

Beggars need a computer with card reader and internet access.

Every bill in a restaurant will be presented on a smartphone with direct link to the waiters facebook page, including a paypal link. You know why.

 

[lovecraft68]

Eventually this leads to barcoding your hand or head.

In other words the Mark of the Beast.

 

[voluptuary_manque]

Sweden is known for its utopian daydreams. However, I have been advised that twenty-somethings and under rarely ever have any cash and even more rarely use it for transactions.

 

[Angellica1612]

Eventually this leads to barcoding your hand or head.

In other words the Mark of the Beast.

Not very many believe in that anymore. Man raising himself to the status of gods.

 

[autoplot]

Mark my words, people, it will lead to paranoid hyperbole on the Internet.

 

[glynndah]

Mark my words, people, it will lead to paranoid hyperbole on the Internet.

What doesn't?

 

[Cruel2BKind]

It does make sense. But Identity theft will always be a danger.

Also, my dreams of being a paranoid hermitess who stores cash in fruit jars buried in the earth under my fireplace are beginning to look like they will never come true.

 

[ishtat]

I've thought for some time that it would be useful if we were all micro-chipped within six months of birth. It shouldn't be too difficult to have it serve as credit card, passport, driving licence etc etc. Personally I don't give a damn about the privacy issue, of which we already have far less than we might imagine.

As time goes on it might also serve as a sort of external hard drive to our brains, after all we are now being told that the future of the computer is end user devices; why can't men and women become those devices. We won't just be "plugging in" our electronic cars but also our (wireless) electronic selves)

Identity theft and suchlike might be dealt with by linking our unique electronic self to our unique DNA.

 

[3113]

Also, my dreams of being a paranoid hermitess who stores cash in fruit jars buried in the earth under my fireplace are beginning to look like they will never come true.

Switch to gold and precious gems in the fruit jars. Probably also pennies as copper is getting to be rare. You should still be able to barter with such things for food and sex.

 

[Tyro999]

Sweden is known for its utopian daydreams. However, I have been advised that twenty-somethings and under rarely ever have any cash and even more rarely use it for transactions.

Make that forty-somethings and under. I'm often in one of the two Old Town Alexandria drug stores [A Walgreens and a CVS] around noon-time when all the downtown lawyers [the courthouse is across the street from both]/office workers are grabbing their sammich, soda, and chips for lunch. 80%+ pay with a swipe of their debit/credit card.

 

[voluptuary_manque]

Switch to gold and precious gems in the fruit jars. Probably also pennies as copper is getting to be rare. You should still be able to barter with such things for food and sex.

Gold might work but I can't believe, 3, that you haven't seen a Stauer catalog with its myriad lab-made gemstones of quality that surpasses the natural--at pennies on the dollar!

Of course, sooner or later someone will figure out how to economically strain gold from sea water . . .

 

[Handley_Page]

It's an excuse to jack up the prices of simply Everything

 

[JustaSCOUNDREL]

Switch to gold and precious gems in the fruit jars. Probably also pennies as copper is getting to be rare. You should still be able to barter with such things for food and sex.

Today copper sells for $3.88 lb. but pennies are 99% or so zinc. Even using zinc pennies are too expensive to mint and are trying to figure out how to stop minting them.

Mike

 

[Thefamiliar]

Once upon a time, people bartered for things they needed. Coins were scoffed at as the didn't fill empty bellies..

Perhaps history will repeat itself?

I never carry cash on me, but usually that is because I don't have any.

 

[driphoney]

I nearly always pay cash for everything. It keeps my accounting in order. Somehow the physical dollars--and the end of them--in my wallet sends a stronger signal to my brain that I'm at the end of my weekly budget than those badly kept numbers in a spreadsheet or ledger when I'm facing that cashier. But that's just me.

 

[lance gt]

Money is all electronic now. The stuff we have in our pockets is worthless. I like Ishat's idea. We'll get chipped on our 1st Bday and start earning credits. When we go to school, we earn more for going and more for good grades. They can be used for spending anytime. They can earn interest like money and be trasnsferred. One international credit value, so no devaluation in exchange. You earn credits at the value of your work level.

Jeremiah Johnson, where ye be?

 

[driphoney]

Money is all electronic now. The stuff we have in our pockets is worthless. I like Ishat's idea. We'll get chipped on our 1st Bday and start earning credits. When we go to school, we earn more for going and more for good grades. They can be used for spending anytime. They can earn interest like money and be trasnsferred. One international credit value, so no devaluation in exchange. You earn credits at the value of your work level.

Jeremiah Johnson, where ye be?

What? You're not siding with me? Troublemaker!

 

[sr71plt]

The stuff we have in our pockets is worthless.

I guess you haven't walked up to a cash register with cash in hand lately then.

 

[lovecraft68]

I'm still pretty much cash only. I take x amount out of the bank when I get paid and when I have none left I am done for the week, I do not go back to the Atm or whip out the card.

That's pretty much called two things, a budget, and discipline. When I tell someone at the bar or wherever that I'm done because I ran out of cash they roll thir eyes when I won't go to the machine, but I'm the only one out of them that's not swimming in debt and living check to check.

Now if I could just keep the wife off of amazon

 

[TxRad]

How do you keep an elephant from charging? Take away his credit card.

Cash works everywhere, every time.

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

How do you keep an elephant from charging? Take away his credit card.

Cash works everywhere, every time.

Indeed it does. But cashless kills flea markets and yard sales and under the table activity. On the other-hand feral Democrats gonna riot when you gotta swipe a card to get your junk.

 

[Liar]

If it gets rid of guilt trip tip jars, I'm all in favor.

 

[TxRad]

If it gets rid of guilt trip tip jars, I'm all in favor.

WOW, a Liar sighting.

How ya doing ya old blue squirrel?

 

[lance gt]

What? You're not siding with me? Troublemaker!

I'm a total cash guy in real life, although I use a debit card to spend it. I don't even have a credit card. More so, I'm back to more bartering with people and trading services and goods. There will be a time soon, when the monetary system crashes and a need to survive takes over. Better to find out now what you're worth and invest, than wait and be left with nothing but a wallet with useless paper in it.

Great to see you Honey